Harry Potter and the Song of Time

Harry Potter and the Song of Time
by Crazy Ivan

Last time (okay, last week) on the Song of Time...

We learned quite a bit about Magid Powers, Ron became a Multimagus (multiple Animagus) Harry got kidnapped, Draco pursued, only to find "a large piece of tire and a hubcap lying in the road a little way beyond a pointy rock which stuck out of the road. Around the next bend, a mangled, crumpled mass of scorched black and silver metal was wrapped around a large tree which had burn marks on it. Draco's heart stopped. "Harry..." he whispered almost to himself." And now, the Song of Time continues.

Chapter 8: Deus Ex Aria

Big Bertha screeched to a halt just in front of the mangled wreck of the black car which had smashed into the tree at high speed. As he jumped out and ran towards the car, followed by Padfoot and Kensington, Draco felt the residual heat from the collision on his face. "Slowly!" he urged.

Kensington held out the wand with the sock on its end. "I'm not getting anything at the moment," he said mournfully. "I'm sorry, Draco, Sirius..."

Padfoot was sniffing around the wreck. Suddenly he changed back into a man, and reached into the wreck, towards a badly-burned body still belted into the back of the car. Drawing his arm slowly back, he withdrew a melted pair of eyeglasses...black eyeglasses. Eyeglasses which were actually broken in half at the nose. Draco just stared at the glasses, trying to take in the enormity of what they meant. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived...dead. Harry had told Draco once that the horrible Dursleys had told him that his parents had died in a car crash, back before he had been aware of the wizarding world. How ironic that now seemed, the very darkest irony, seeping through Draco's thoughts. He dropped his head in a gesture of respect for his dead friend. Friend, Draco thought, my friend. It all seemed so final, so empty. He had thought that, when one of those close to him eventually died, he might be wracked with grief, or something similarly cliched. Cliches did, of course, have roots in reality. But not here. Not now.

Draco stared at the ground, remembering the first time he had seen Harry, in Madam Malkin's. She, of course, had been one of the casualties in the Death Eaters' bombing of Diagon Alley in their seventh year, the last year of the War. Draco looked at the tire tracks, where the driver of the car had obviously braked, skidded, and come off the road, coming into contact with the large tree at high speed.

Over to Draco's right, Kensington gave a little yelp. "Draco! What shoes are you wearing?"

"What?" Draco's voice was wooden, not having completely comprehended the question.

"What shoes are you wearing?" Kensington repeated.

"Does that have anything to do with Harry?" Draco asked tiredly.

"Draco, this is important. Please, answer me."

"Kenneth Trolls."

"Huh." Kensington pulled the phone from his pocket and thumbed the buttons. "Herm? Kensington. No, nothing so far," he lied. "Tell me, do you remember what shoes Harry was wearing when he was abducted?"

A muffled Hermione voice came from the other end of the phone.

"Neverlands, you say? What size? Ten?" Kensington asked, triumphantly. "Hermione, thank you. You have no idea how much help you've been. Tell Siriol that we're leaving Bertha and going on by broom. Yah. Actually, give me Siriol, please." A brief pause. "Hi. Yah, a well-faked car crash. Footprints gave it away. They killed someone who was the same body shape as Harry and planted him in the car with Harry's glasses, then ran it into a tree at high speed. I noticed because there are Neverland boot prints in Harry's size, and they're in the sort of pattern that look like the feet are tied together. Yah. Brooms. Got them in the car. Yah. Bye."

"Right," Kensington said, turning to Draco, who felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, "they've obviously managed to fool the Bloodhound spell. A large amount of heat such as this'll do it. All we have to do is circle in ever-increasing spirals until the wand picks up the trail again. Shall we mount? Sirius, I'm afraid that dogs don't make great broomstick flyers, and unless you have a motorbike around here somewhere..." Kensington trailed off -- he (as well as everyone else who knew Sirius) had heard of his motorcycle stories.

"No," Sirius said, clenching and unclenching his fists. "I'm going to kill these motherfuckers," he said calmly and quietly. "Shall we go?"

Kensington pulled the brooms out of Big Bertha's trunk and handed one each to Draco and Sirius with a smile. "Nimbus XKs, these are. Bloody fast." They each slipped quickly onto the Cushioning Charm, and Draco noticed that this particular charm was obviously set up for speed -- the rider was basically in a forward-leaning position, knees supported by a supplementary charm to allow extra leverage for maneuverability. One's elbows rested on yet another charm, and the handle of the broom was slightly carved to allow a good hand grip.

Draco pushed off with his feet and immediately knew that he had to get himself one of these brooms. It was the nearest he had ever felt to actually flying (otherworld experience apart...). He yelled to Kensington that he would go high to scout out while Kensington rode in ever-increasing spirals to pick up the trail again. Draco swooped upwards like a rocket, the Cushioning charm transmitting almost no vibrations to his arms or legs. He looked down and saw St Andrews far in the distance, Big Bertha under the crash tree, and Kensington in his long velvet cloak flying around in concentric circles, accompanied by Sirius who looked like he was holding a phone.

Suddenly, Kensington stopped short, held up the wand as if to confirm something, and began to speed forwards like a bolt of greased lightning. Draco kicked backwards and dipped the handle of the broom, speeding downwards at more than terminal velocity. He caught up with Kensington and Sirius as they sped forwards, and yelled that they should take a three-tier approach, one low, one high and one in the middle. Sirius and Kensington both gestured acceptance with a raised thumb, and Draco swooped up high again, with Kensington taking middle, holding the wand out ahead of himself. Sirius, with his eyesight still keen from his transformation, went low in order to make sure that Harry's kidnappers hadn't gone to ground somewhere and then faked the trail.

Kensington was in front, in view of both Draco and Sirius, and every so often as they sped southwest, Sirius would use his phone to give the signal to pause for a few moments, as he searched around at ground level. Draco and Kensington sometimes dropped down to help Sirius cover more ground more quickly, then scooted back up to their respective heights. It was possibly an hour or so later that the lights of Edinburgh began to loom over the Firth of Forth, the mouth of the great river rippling in the moonlight. They descended with the ground as it sloped down to the several ports that sat on the coast, and skimmed over the rooftops quietly as they went down to the sea. Kensington landed first on the sand, pointing sharply northwestwards, a direction which could, conceivably, have taken Harry -- as well as whoever had kidnapped him -- back to St Andrews. Kensington pulled out his phone and called Siriol.

"Siriol? Yah. Kensington. Got a trail leading out to sea from Anstruther. Northeastwards. Yah, I thought so too. Could be taking him back to town to hide him. 'Specially since there's nothing northeast of here until you hit the North Pole. I suppose. Yah, that's a good idea. Tatty-bye."

Kensington turned to Draco and Sirius. "Siriol agrees that they're probably back in St Andrews by now, but she reckons that they might have thrown us again. I think we should just loop over Edinburgh and loop around until we've cut off the rest of the country for a good fifty miles."

"Agreed," Sirius said, "but I think we should go further than that."

"Me too," Kensington said, "but Siriol was particularly clear that we shouldn't go past the fifty-mile mark in case she needs us back in St Andrews PDQ."

"Why?" Draco asked. "Can't we Apparate?"

Kensington shook his head. "No. Siriol has contacted those we can trust in the Institute and there's an Interdiction Hex against Apparition for fifteen miles around St Andrews, not to mention a security cordon which is sweeping in from there. She's concocted some sort of theory that there's a threat to some Institute bigwig. If Harry is in St Andrews, they won't be getting him out while there're a bunch of miffed Magids looking for him."

"And let me guess. We can't call the Ministry because we don't know if it was a Ministry person who abducted him."

"Got it in one, Mr. Malfoy, got it in one," Kensington quipped as he remounted the Nimbus. "Ready to head out again?"

Draco got back onto the broom. "Is my third middle name 'Anatoliy'?"

"Your third middle name is Anatoliy?" Kensington looked like he was trying to refrain from a snigger.

"Yes," Draco said self-righteously, "it is. Do you have something to say about that?"

"No, not at all," Kensington said deadpan, but with a little snortle at the end.

Ignoring him, Draco pulled up on the Nimbus XK and it climbed again. They sped silently and swiftly southwards until they reached the southern coastline of the Firth of Forth, and followed it down until they reached what Kensington reckoned was about fifty miles, at which point they turned inland and began to fly westward in a wide curving arc, which was really the circumference of a circle whose center was St Andrews.

* * *

Cold and tired, they reached the coast fifty miles north of St Andrews as the sky was starting to lighten before dawn. Dejectedly, they landed on the beach and Kensington pulled out his phone again. "Siriol? No, we didn't. Sorry. No. Nothing. You neither? Bollocks. Now? Yah, all right. Ciao."

Kensington turned to the others. "Siriol wants us to head back to St A's. We can't exactly fly around on brooms in full view of the Muggle populace in daytime. It looks like they either didn't land back in Britain or landed more than fifty miles away, knowing that it would be tough for us to find them. Come on, let's head back along the coast and just make sure that they didn't double back north of St Andrews."

Sirius looked as if he were going to chew nails, and Kensington looked utterly dejected, Draco thought as they got back on the now-uncomfortable broomsticks and headed back, low to the waves in case the soon-to-be-rising sun silhouetted them against the slowly-graying sky. It looked like it was going to be a horrible day, Draco thought as they passed Arbroath, at which point the sky had lightened to a dull overcast grey, with darker clouds scudding slowly in from the west. They flew into St Andrews via the Castle's broom terrace, on the seaward side of the building, and only had to perform one slight Anti-Muggle charm against a student who was running along the beach at far too early a time. They trooped into the kitchen, which was now looking like a makeshift headquarters for a small army. Wizarding maps were spread over the table and tacked to the walls -- one of the town of St Andrews, one of Fife, one of Scotland and one containing all of the European coastline from Norway to Portugal.

They differed from Muggle maps, Draco knew, in that they were actually exact pictures of what they represented, and moved like normal wizard photographs. One could, of course, draw on them, and all one's scribblings moved or changed into little animated drawings. For example, all the roads out of St Andrews had a little flag stuck into them with the name of the Magid or Magids who were surveilling them -- little flags for Flamel, Aikatsu, Hubble, Norton and MacGregor were all there, as well as the names of several students right next to the instructors. Little flags for Draco, Hermione, Siriol, Minty, Xanthe, Kensington and Sirius were currently sticking out of various parts of the Castle, and flags representing several of the older Magid students who were walking the streets of St Andrews that early morning hopped along the map.

A pot of espresso bubbled on the stove next to a saucepan of steaming milk, and Draco poured cups of cappuccino for Sirius and Kensington, giving himself a triple espresso, into which he stirred four spoonfuls of sugar. Kensington gave him a questioning look, and Draco said, simply, "High octane." Kensington nodded understandingly and tipped his mug in salute, picking up a danish pastry with the other hand and munching on it as they walked over to the table, where Siriol was pointing her wand at various items of interest to the assembled crowd -- Minty, Xanthe and Narcissa had come into the kitchen while Draco was getting coffee.

"Right," she said, unusually businesslike, "here's where we are currently. We have all roads in and out of St Andrews watched by at least one Magid Instructor and a graduate student of theirs. Teams of graduate students and Instructors dressed in Muggle clothing are scouring the streets for any trace, but it's extremely difficult to go around with a piece of clothing on the end of a wand without the Muggles noticing. Fortunately, one of the House Elves noticed a pile of Harry's dirty laundry that had been tidied without Harry realising it, so we do have an ample amount of things that have touched Harry's skin for the purposes of the Bloodhound Charm. Sirius, Kensington and Draco," she nodded to each of them, "have flown a fifty-mile circle area around town, and the last trace they found was heading in a northeasterly direction from St Monans, wasn't it?"

"Anstruther," Draco said absently, picturing the scene again in his mind.

"Anstruther, thanks, Draco. At any rate, this is hardly indicative. The abductors could either have pointed in that direction to throw us off the scent or to try to make us second-guess which scent we're going to follow. For that reason, we're not going to take one direction or the other until we have a better idea of why and by whom Harry was abducted. Certain of my friends from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, including Alastor Moody," (Draco remembered what it felt like to bounce up and down in ferret form) "have investigated the scene of the Bentley crash and have concluded that the abductors killed a Muggle and then burned his body, with Harry's glasses on, inside a car which they had earlier crashed. The crash wasn't, as far as we know, part of their original plan. This is a good thing and it works in our favor, as our enemies have been thrown off-track at least once by random chance. Of course, it's entirely likely that we too will have similar experiences, but the key to our success in this is that, when they happen, we must not act impulsively." Siriol enunciated every word. "We must think and reflect, try to figure out how the accident will help our endeavor to find Harry."

Siriol pointed to the map of England and Scotland. "We're facing several difficulties here, people. Firstly, it's daylight, so we must not be seen, especially not waving wands, and we simply cannot go around doing Anti-Muggle charms, because we're sure to miss some. We can't ask the professionals from the M.L.E.S.," (Siriol pronounced it 'EM-less') "because we're not yet sure who kidnapped Harry, and whether or not they have contacts in the Ministry of Magic. I'm afraid, people, that this will have to be among ourselves and our very close friends. I'm hoping to bring some of the Hogwarts people in as well, but we can't be too obvious with that, because if too many teachers from Hogwarts start turning up here, someone'll get suspicious. Hagrid, however, will be arriving here just as soon as Mesmerelzha Grubbly-Plank arrives at Hogwarts, and Albus has said that the excuse will be that Hagrid is off finding some Grindylows on the moor, which should arouse no suspicion at all. Minerva will be arriving every afternoon, because she only teaches in the morning, and Albus himself will be here whenever he can. There'll also be a variety of Weasleys arriving soon, and I'll put them to work immediately. Other help...we have the Kenyan Contingent here in St Andrews, whom I'm very fond of. You first-years may know Martha Mkenyo, and we've also got three graduate students who I know, Denko Kiuna, Ngugi Ngethe and Gachao Mbu, who will be helping out with the patrolling. You'll probably see others as well."

Siriol paused. "All I have left to say is that, when you're outside, be inconspicuous. Wear ordinary Muggle clothing, no capes. Jeans and sweaters or sweatshirts with sneakers if you can, and carry your wand inside your shirt or pants. Don't make it too obvious that you're looking for something or someone. There are people at the top of the chapel tower pointing Bloodhound wands about, so you shouldn't need to do any directional tracking. Everyone has a phone like the ones we've got, and the numbers you didn't have before you'll have now. Any suggestions?"

Everyone looked at each other, thinking hard about all the information they'd just received in such a short space of time, going over it in their minds. They all shook their heads, and Siriol clapped her hands together and showed them all where and when they would be patrolling. It was basically a loop, so that nobody would notice the same person walking in the same area for hours on end, and gave them all times to come back to the Castle and change their clothes, to lessen the chances of a Muggle or an enemy spotting the same shoes or shirt. She added that there would be Muggle-born wizards patrolling in nondescript cars, and that there was a wider search pattern going on outside town and outside the fifty-mile limit, which would really pick up on broomstick after night fell.

"Most importantly," Siriol said, "you must all sleep for at least six hours today at some point. We'll need you all as soon as dark falls at six p.m., so be refreshed, coffeed up and wearing warm, dark clothing. If you need a broom or if yours is old or slow, say now and I'll have Quality Quidditch owl up some today. Money, people, is not an object at the moment. If you need to take a Muggle taxi, do, and I'll pay you back. Here's a cash box with Muggle and Magical money in it. Fill your wallets or purses in case you need it. The students among you should carry studenty-type bookbags, in case there's something you find and want to bring back. There are also various tourist-like things to disguise yourselves with. If you think you are being followed or if someone, no matter how Muggle they appear, asks you anything, go immediately to the basement flat of 12 Alexandra Place and ask for James. It's a flat that connects to a concealed network of tunnels under St Andrews. One of them -- they're signposted -- comes out here. If someone has to use it, everyone's phone will be text messaged a new location to escape from. Clear?"

Everyone nodded or said "yep", and Siriol said, "Right, let's go get Harry and teach these bastards not to fuck with us." A chorus of "right"s and "yeah"s echoed around. As Draco walked over to the row of nondescript studenty-type rucksacks, he nearly tripped over Tiddy the house elf, and was suddenly struck by the most enormous brainwave.

"House elves," Draco said, quietly, the idea looming large in his mind.

"Oh, Tiddy is very sorry to be getting under Master Draco's feet, sir," Tiddy apologised profusely. "Tiddy is not going to be doing it again, no sir."

"House elves!" Draco chortled.

"Sir?" Tiddy sounded shocked. "Was sir thinking Tiddy was a common garden elf?"

Draco punched one fist into the other and yelled at the top of his voice, "HOUSE ELVES!" The room fell silent in an instant, and Draco whirled to face them. "House elves!" he said, as if this explained everything.

"Yes, Draco, that's what they are," Hermione said, picking up a dark green bookbag and slipping her wand inside it along with her purse, full now of small-denomination Muggle and Wizard currency.

"House elves can be spies," Draco said triumphantly. "Tiddy here gave me the idea for it. Think about it -- I never gave the elves in Malfoy Manor a second look. No Dark Wizard, if that is who we're dealing with, is going to do otherwise, and all of them have Elves. It's certainly not going to hurt to ask some of the Castle Elves to have an ask around. Tiddy told me a while ago that Harry is like a hero to them, because he helped free Dobby, which started the whole House Elf Liberation movement, along with Hermione. They'll do it, and they won't let a thing slip."

Tiddy climbed up onto the counter. "Draco Malfoy is right, honoured wizards. House elves is very grateful to Harry Potter and Hermione Granger for starting the fight for House Elves' rights, and we is willing to do anything to help get Harry Potter back, even spy on our own masters, we is."

Siriol approached Tiddy and shook his small elfish hand. "Tiddy, thank you. You might just be the important link to getting Harry back."

* * *

Draco was third out on patrol, and he went out through a secret passage which led down from a heavy metal vault door in the wine cellar of the Castle. The walls of the passage were hewn roughly from the grey rock on which St Andrews was built, and the center of some of the steps were worn from use. Non-smoking torches, which burned with a glow remarkably similar to real daylight, lit the way. Draco walked for two minutes (he counted as he walked) and, rounding a corner, came to a deep cylindrical cavern.

He walked out of the tunnel and stood on what was actually a walkway carved from the stone. He looked across and up and down the deep cavern, which was almost perfectly round, with a dozen or more levels, each with their own walkway jutting out immediately below the one above, which tapered back to the wall a few feet above Draco's head. Tunnels led apparently randomly from spaces in the walls, and he spied several wizards in cloaks and quite a few in nondescript Muggle clothing, the latter walking a bit too purposefully, Draco thought. Perhaps he should tell Siriol about that, in case their wizarding enemies were a little too observant?

Chiselled markings above each tunnel indicated their destinations: the one he had just come out of said The Castle. Others said Room 9, The Gymnasium, Duntulm Lecture Theatre, The Farm, The Island, Vaternish, Transflector Room, Room 28, Room 17 and many, many more. Some had addresses marked on them: 4 Rose Lane, 23 Westburn Wynd, 9 John Street, 52 Argyle Street, 8 College Street, 66 Crail's Lane and so on. At four stages around the walls of the thirty-foot wide cavern, there were columns of vertical holes which lined up with the ones above and below them. Above these holes was marked "Stairs" in glittery purple lettering which glowed slightly, drawing one's attention to it. A parchment list of which tunnel on which level led where was hanging from a nail next to each stair hole, and Draco found the one he was looking for, "66 Crail's Lane", the passage for which was two levels up and halfway around the cylinder, walking widdershins, or clockwise.

As he climbed the spiralling staircase, lit by the same daylight-emitting torches, Draco thought about the entire Wizard community which existed beneath the streets that the Muggles of St Andrews knew absolutely nothing about. He emerged two levels above where he had entered, and walked around to the tunnel marked "66 Crail's Lane". He strode quickly down the passageway, also lighted with the daylight torches, and ran up a flight of stairs which emerged onto a landing, in front of which was a wall of bricks. Draco tapped the one with a small scratch on it with his wand, and then hurriedly shoved the wand into the over-the-shoulder bag he was carrying. The bricks slid silently downwards after a few seconds, and Draco emerged into a bicycle-strewn front hallway which was very small indeed, leading up a flight of wooden stairs or out a blue wooden door. Waiting for the bricks to rise up again, Draco opened the blue door and walked confidently out into Crail's Lane, turning left as he did so.

The narrow alley, while hardly deserted, was not full of people either. A couple of Muggle-looking people were walking down away from Draco, and he turned to follow them, emerging onto South Street. The wind hit him then -- it was a chilly damp wind, cutting to the bone despite his corded white woollen sweater and windbreaker. Draco hunched over, muttering an Impervius charm, and then straightened, turned left and headed down towards the Cathedral, passing several shops, and scrutinising doors and windows as unobtrusively as possible. He turned left at the end of South Street, following the road around past one of the Muggle university's post-graduate student residences and a memorial to those lost in the First World War.

He noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but turned right and walked down the path to the pier, which led right past the Cathedral and down a steep slope above cliffs and one of the beaches of St Andrews where the Beltane celebrations took place, he remembered reading. Out in the bay, gulls wheeled and dove, pulling small fish out of the water and swallowing them in one fell swoop. He followed the path out to the pier, and walked along the old stone structure to the very tip. Standing there, the Impervius charm seemed to have little effect against the fierce North Sea wind, which swirled around him, seemingly biting through his clothing to bare skin. On impulse, Draco flung his arms out at the wind and the sea.

"Powers of the Sea and Sky, melded now this tempest by,
Hardly be you mild or meek: Help me find that which I seek!"

The ancient invocation rippled effortlessly off his tongue, and suddenly Draco was enveloped by an enormous wave which swamped the end of the pier as if from nowhere. Draco was hit by the icy shock of the frigid water and, forcing himself not to gasp with the shock (and thereby inhale a gallon or two of sea water, hardly the cleanest in the world either), opened his eyes. Breathe, he seemed to hear. It was a strong yet kindly voice.

Wonderful. Now I'm fucking hearing things, having already summoned a rogue wave which has pulled me into what is probably the fucking coldest water I've ever seen or felt in my entire life, or in any of my prior lives, his brain flashed in a couple of instants.

His lungs started to burn with the effort of not breathing. He tried to swim upwards with all his might, but despite the fact that he felt himself moving fairly quickly upwards, the surface of the water, which was a slightly lighter green above him, he got no closer to it.

Boy, breathe, the voice seemed to say again. It was a deep masculine voice, and seemed to come from below him. Draco suddenly realised that the water didn't seem so cold any more. Was his heart stopping from the shock?

Boy, I am Poseidon, the voice said. Breathe. You will come to no harm.

Oh, right, Draco thought. The Greek god of the sea. Whatever. My body is in its last moments on its mortal coil. Shuffle, shuffle, hope my next incarnation has better luck than this one with staying alive past the age of twenty.

Look, Poseidon interrupted, you snotty little brat, shut up and breathe.

Draco inwardly shrugged, gave up, and breathed. And breathed again. And breathed in and out as if he had just run a marathon at high altitude, and if he had been an asthmatic and had forgotten his inhaler.

Right, the voice claiming to be Poseidon said, I'm so glad you decided to breathe. It would have been terribly irritating for you to have passed out, breathed again, come around and then for me to have had to explain who you are, why you're here, and who I am. People do tend to have rather a hissy fit about that.

I can understand that, Draco said. It was certainly a bit unnerving to say the least. Where are you?

An enormous blue seaweed-strewn head emerged from the dark greenness thirty feet away from Draco. The head alone was about twice as tall as Draco was, and that was all he could see. Poseidon (if that was indeed who it was) had a long blue-grey beard, and his face was actually rather kindly. Draco felt himself pulled by a current into deeper water, and braced himself for the deeper cold which he knew should be coming but which never actually came. He floated onto Poseidon's outstretched palm and the deity raised him up to eye-height.

Don't worry, Poseidon said, I won't eat you. Anyway, you called?

Sorry?

You called. You invoked the powers of Sea and Sky in a tempest. Hermes is a little busy right now, he's having a quick shag with Aphrodite and Dionysus, Poseidon explained. You know how those younger ones are.

In all honesty, Your Deity, I don't, Draco said.

'Your Deity'? Poseidon sounded amused.

Would you prefer something else? I've never talked to a God before... Draco trailed off. This definitely wasn't covered in Lucretia De Bratt's Guide to Modern Etiquette For The Cultured Wizard, which his father had made him memorise from the age of three.

Poseidon is fine. Anyway, you had something to ask me? Or shall I just be off?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do, Draco said. I'm searching for a friend of mine and I rather wondered if it was possible for you to help me. He's been abducted by powers unknown, and I have this niggling feeling that his abductors escaped by sea.

And you want me to help you find them? Poseidon didn't sound unamenable to the idea.

That is the general idea, Draco said, nodding. He pushed his hair back out of his eyes as Poseidon considered his answer.

I must speak with my relatives. I shall send a messenger to you with my answer post haste. Good bye, Draco.

Hang on, thought Draco. I never told you my name!

That's what 'omniscient' means...

Suddenly, Draco felt the water rising upwards. He struggled to surge up to the surface, which he broke as it lifted back up onto the end of the pier. Sopping wet, Draco swore, performed a Quick-Dry charm on himself after surreptitiously doing a Muggle check, and turned sharply, striding back towards the Castle.

* * *

"Draco, are you taking fucking acid?" Xanthe exploded as Draco finished telling them what had happened.

"Yes, actually. Isn't that neon swirl pretty?" Draco said, the sarcasm dripping from his voice and collecting in a small pool on the floor somewhere near his left foot.

They were back in the kitchen/War Room, along with Hermione, Kensington, Siriol, Martha Mkenyo and Minty. Sirius and Narcissa were sleeping and a newly-arrived Ron Weasley and Rembledon Darcy were patrolling. Big Bertha was getting a lot of use carting people back from the train station, as was the spare room that Siriol had sensibly set up for Apparation.

"As bizarre-o as it sounds, Xanthe, it is most likely true," Siriol said. "I've been hearing things recently about the possibility of supermagical activity around St Andrews, and Poseidon's appearance doesn't surprise me, although I have to say that I suspected Hermes more."

"Okay, let me get this straight," Xanthe said cynically. "You appear to have knowledge of Gods that nobody has worshipped for several thousand years, and Draco just met one. Am I the only one who has some sort of problem making this logical leap, and thinks that you might all have had some sort of mass-nutcase experience?"

"Actually," Hermione said from the other side of the kitchen, "people have been worshipping the Greek Pantheon since the Greek civilisation was at its zenith. Not very many, mind you, and not in public or openly. But worshipping they have been. And, of course, if a God or Goddess is worshipped, s/he gains power. I've heard vague murmurings in Current Affairs in Wizarding and elsewhere that the Celtic and Old British pantheon have been increasing in strength through their followers' increased activity, but that's more Kensington's field than mine. Astronomology never really took off on me."

"Yah, actually, that's right. CAW and, in particular, the Astronomology and Astronumetrics that I've been looking at and working out recently show a really significant rise in the level of worship of the older British and Celtic Goddesses and Gods, particularly Anglo-Irish deities. The Greco-Romans, Egyptian-Near-Easterns and Asians have also been gaining, but not at the rate of the A-Is. Mainly at the expense of the JudeoChristian Triune God, who has been suffering a bit from the problems of lip-service. It seems some of his followers aren't exactly practicing what he's preaching."

"No change there then," Xanthe sniped.

"Yah, quite. Anyway, that's where the current Deity Situation is," Kensington said with something of a disapproving look at Xanthe.

"Anyway," Siriol said, "the fact is that, despite several hours now of searching, we have come up with precisely no evidence. We do, however, have the possibility of a deus ex machina salvation, or should that be deus ex mare?"

A chorus of agreement came from the groups clustered in the kitchen.

"We do, however, have an ever-expanding network of house elves thanks to Tiddy here."

Tiddy stood, in a freshly-ironed pillowcase, looking very important as he engaged in hushed conversation with another house elf.

"On a sidebar," Hermione said, "some of you know that Harry, Ron and I are linked from a little incident with a Penseive. I still can't feel Harry's link anywhere at all. And I can feel Ron's, so it seems to still be working."

"There are..." Siriol checked the clock on the wall. "Six hours until sunset. I think we should all go upstairs and try to get some rest until then -- we're none of us going to be particularly useful without any sleep for two nights running. I've mixed up some thyme tea, and everyone should probably have a drink of it to help them to sleep well. If there's nothing else..." She looked around the room.

"Right then. Anyone not told me that they need a broom? No, good. See you in just under six hours."

Siriol watched as they all poured thyme tea for themselves and then sat down at the table, looking out of the window into the bay, the whitecaps scudding across it. Poseidon, you old bastard...where the hell are you?

* * *

Draco slipped out of his Muggle clothing and, clad only in his skintight black silk boxers with the very revealing front, threw them in his laundry bin, listening as they bounced down the chute into the hamper marked "Draco" in the utility room. Peeling off the boxers, Draco wrapped himself in the black and red Chinese silk dressing gown that he usually used for invocations, the silk of it being interwoven with invisible filaments of conducting metal, which amplified Draco's natural powers and their ability to react with MEFs. He drew a circle of sea salt just over five feet in diameter and within drew a pentagram with five lines of powdered seaweed. He placed five round green glass containers of sand taken from the West Sands beach in St Andrews which contained tall, narrow candles at the points of the pentagram. Sitting cross-legged in the center of the pentagram, Draco raised his arms, palms upward, to a 45-degree angle in the traditional receptive pose. Drawing in energy, he brought his arms down and in until they were parallel to the floor. Holding his right hand over the sand container in the Sea position of the pentacle, Draco sang, clearly and loudly, another customary invocation of the Sea powers, adapted for a naval hymn in the Victorian era. He sang it to the naval hymn tune, one filled with majesty and longing, of hope and of dashed hopes.

"Gods of the Waters, strong to save
Whose arms do bind the restless wave
Who bid the mighty oceans deep
Their own appointed limits keep.
O hear us when we cry to thee
For aid from powers of the sea!

Poseidon's voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at his word.
Who walked among the foaming deep
And calm amidst its rage did sleep.
O hear us when we cry to thee
For aid from powers of the sea!

Goddesses whose voices subdued
Did calm the chaos dark and rude
And bid its angry tumult cease
And give for wild confusion peace.
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
For aid from powers of the sea!

O Gods of ocean and of power
Our brethren shield in danger's hour
From rock and tempest, fire and foe
Protect them wheresoe'er they go
Thus evermore shall rise to thee
Invocations from land and sea"

The invocation complete, Draco clapped his hands as hard as he could over the candle at the foremost point of the pentacle, the swoosh of wind blowing it out. He proceeded to extinguish the rest of the candles in a clockwise direction, then grounded his remaining magical energy. He sat very still for a few moments and then stood, walked over to his desk and voraciously attacked the chicken sandwich which he'd brought up, sipping at the still-warm thyme tea as he munched. Food one ate to ground oneself after working magic always tasted better than that which one ate simply for sustenance.

Draco shrugged out of the silk dressing gown, hanging it from the hanger on the other side of his wardrobe. He padded nearly silently over to the bed and slipped under the sheets, waving his hand at the lights, which dimmed as his head touched the pillow. After a night of driving and flying around the countryside, he was so tired that he hadn't even taken five breaths before he was asleep.

* * *

He awoke just under six hours later, to a house elf tapping him on the shoulder. "Be waking up, Master Draco," the elf said to him. "It is almost time for the big people to be looking for Harry Potter."

"Nnng, fanks," Draco mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Three seconds later, he was wide awake, and waved his hand at the lights again, which lightened to nearly full brightness. The sky outside the window as he pulled the curtains was almost completely dark, and as he looked at the wizard barometer on the wall outside, the arrow was pointing to "Mother and Father of a storm".

Draco stared at it for a few moments and then jumped back in alarm as an extremely handsome man of about Draco's age with curly hair, wearing winged sandals -- and nothing else -- flew onto the balcony outside the sliding doors. Spotting Draco, the man walked through the glass door -- literally -- and hopped up on the desk next to a rather surprised Draco.

"Draco Malfoy?" the man asked in a rather luscious accent.

"Yes...who ordered me the strip-o-gram?" Draco asked.

The man giggled boyishly. "That would be Poseidon. But the old bugger didn't tell me you were quite so good-looking or I wouldn't have stopped for that shag with Dionysus before I brought your message over," he said, staring appreciatively at Draco's package.

"You must be Hermes," Draco said, reflexively covering his privates and then realising how distinctly pointless that was in the face of a rather powerful Greek deity.

"Yes," said Hermes, "and I'm terribly glad I came. In more ways than one."

"Did Poseidon have a message for me?" Draco asked.

"Yep. Zeus said that Poseidon can't tell you where your mate is. It's a god thing, sorry. Not meddling in the affairs of mortals and all that. At least...not in their destinies," Hermes said with another stare at Draco's crotch.

"Umm, quite," Draco said. "Can you tell me anything?"

"Well, now, dearie," Hermes said, sidling closer and cupping Draco's left buttock in his hand, "why don't we talk about that a little more...precisely?"

Draco was finding it very hard to resist this muscled, handsome deity, and the attractions of having a god as a lover were certainly there. A little light flashed on inside Draco's hormone-wracked mind, a little light with "Harry" on it in black letters. Draco wondered idly, as Hermes stroked his stomach, whether that meant that he should sleep with Hermes to glean information from him. He was still pondering that (and Hermes' hand was moving down a little lower than Draco's stomach) when the door popped open and Siriol stuck her head round the door.

"Draco, I--Hermes, get off him!" she snapped as Draco dove out of Hermes' hands and under the bed. "No corrupting the mortals, remember?"

"That's so unfair," Hermes said. "Aphrodite gets to do it all the time -- why can't I?"

"Because she's the Goddess of Love and you're the Herald, that's why," Siriol explained reasonably. "Did you deliver your message?"

"Yeah," Hermes said grumpily. "And I almost had this one in bed with me until you came in."

"Lucky you. And lucky him. I heard what you did to that Justin Finch-Fletchley guy in Hogsmeade last month. Poor man couldn't sit down for a week! Anyway, be off with you."

"Farewell, comely youth," Hermes said in the direction of under-the-bed. "I'll be back..."

Hermes did a little bounce on his feet, which started the winged sandals flapping, and he flew straight out of the closed glass door.

"Okay, Draco. Get dressed and come downstairs, and be very very glad that I just stopped Hermes from ravishing you. You'd probably have had a distinct amount of trouble sitting on a broom all night," Siriol said drily as she walked out, closing the door behind her.

Breathing very deeply under the bed, Draco withdrew into himself for a second, muttered "inner poise" to himself several times, slid out calmly from under the bed, opened his chest of drawers and pulled out a black thong. Riding a broomstick all night, Draco had found out very recently, was definitely not made more comfortable with boxers riding up the crack of one's arse, and the thong was the closest thing he had to a jock strap. He would probably have to get one of those if this kept up for a while. He slipped the thong on and then searched through his drawers for the most skintight pair of trousers he owned, robes being a little whippy around the ankles, not to mention rather chilly. He finally decided on the black leather trousers that he tried to save for special occasions, slipping them on and pulling out a longsleeved black clingy t-shirt, over which he pulled a black rollneck jumper. Pulling his heaviest winter cloak out of the closet, and grabbing the rucksack he had been using earlier in the day, Draco hurried out of his room, extracting his wand from the rucksack and finding a note wrapped around it.

Draco -- listen very carefully to what Hermes says tonight.

That was it. And it appeared to be in someone whose handwriting was very similar to his own. Draco stared at the piece of paper as he hustled down the staircase and into the kitchen, pulling his hair back as he did so. Everyone else was there, and as Draco walked in, Siriol was saying "...tender ministrations of Hermes," to which there was rather a lot of chuckling from the room in general. Draco blushed, remembering that had actually Hermes' 'tender ministrations' had actually felt rather nice. Putting that thought -- and the piece of paper -- from his mind, Draco forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

"Well, Draco? What did he say?"

"Before or after he tried to have sex with me?" Draco quipped.

"Either, but please leave the sex part out...yech," Xanthe said, wrinkling her nose up. "Urgh, Draco having sex...how disgusting."

"He said that Zeus had forbidden Poseidon to help," Draco said with an 'it's-not-my-fault' shrug.

"Damn," Siriol said. "Well, we can't help that. Tonight's plan of action is for everybody to be up and about on brooms. I see that you're all sensibly dressed, and there are brooms for your use downstairs in the broom shed. Please launch off the balcony next to it rather than from the garden, as we don't really want the Muggles seeing flocks of people on 'sticks. This map," (she pointed to a wizarding map of Scotland with place names overlaid in a glittering silver) "shows you the areas which you will be searching. The idea is that we go from east to west, then west to east, and there are hopefully enough of us now to make that possible."

Draco hadn't noticed, but their numbers had increased significantly since that afternoon. Now, as well as Hermione, Xanthe, Kensington, Minty, Sirius and Narcissa, there were Ron Weasley and Rembledon Darcy (who were to search along the roads using Big Bertha, since Ron couldn't use a broomstick alone without having serious Multimagus issues), and most of the remaining Weasley family -- Arthur, Molly (who had brought her trusty old Cleansweep 7), Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, who were all standing around the stove and looking concerned, even Fred and George, who for once didn't look as though they were going to make mischief. Julian and Anne Kirrin, a brother and sister who were friends of Siriol's and who, Draco remembered, had almost beaten him at Wizard Scrabble, Martha Mkenyo and several other African wizards, and a couple of the graduate students from the Sky session yesterday (was it that short a time ago?) were leaning against the far wall. Next to Sirius stood Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, Rubeus Hagrid, Mundungus Fletcher, Alastor Moody, Arabella Figg, Minerva McGonagall and, to Draco's surprise, Severus Snape, who had never really been fond of Harry.

Draco finally got to see the map, and discovered that he was searching along the northern coast of Scotland, roughly from Fraserburgh past Lossiemouth to Inverness, then inland past Dingwall and around all of Skye. He reckoned that it would likely be morning by that time, so was rather glad to see that Kensington would be taking the Hebrides, so they could probably fly back together. After gulping down a triple-strength espresso and a cereal bar, Draco followed everyone else down the stairs to the broom shed, mounted a Nimbus XK (which, now that he didn't have boxers on, would probably be rather comfortable) and pushed off into the air.

Despite the occasion, not to mention the rain, which was coming down in sheets, Draco got the exhilarating rush of flying in the air, with only a broomstick between him and the ground. It was a wonderful feeling of freedom and speed with just a little bit of danger thrown in there as well. He grinned and, pulling up, leaned forward, the broom accelerating upwards as if there were a hurricane behind it. The multiple cushioning charms of the XK once again lessened the vibrations that would normally come from the high speed at which he was flying. He swallowed a small bug and then remembered to cast the Deflector Charm in front of the broom, which not only stopped him from eating more insects but also cut down on the volume of the wind whistling past his ears and the rain which was making it hard to see. "Flectio!" he yelled, holding onto the broom with one hand and pulling his wand out with the other.

He concentrated on the ground below him as he headed north, past Newport-on-Tay, over the Firth of Tay to Dundee, and then up past Arbroath, Montrose, Stonehaven, and Aberdeen at top speed, following a Muggle train wending its way up the coast until he saw it turn hard left at Fraserburgh in the distance. He had a blue sock of Harry's on the front of his wand, which he was holding with his right hand at the same time as he was steering the broom. Draco pulled up sharply in a braking maneuver and then plummeted in a dive to the floor. He pulled out of the dive a hundred feet above the ground and started to move westwards, much slower now, flying with one hand while the other kept casting the Bloodhound Charm. Nothing.

He kept flying west, unfolding his pocket-sized map with a little pulsing broomstick for where he was, his route in red (brighter red for where he was going, darker for where he had been) and the towns below, all lit up, with little green flags with yellow writing naming them. He flew over Fraserburgh and Rosehearty, New Aberdour, Pennan and Longmanhill, Macduff and Inverboyndie, Portsoy and Fordyce, Findochty and a myriad other little coastal towns until the coast started to wend off northeast again just to the north of Inverness. Draco recast the Bloodhound charm to make sure it hadn't stopped working for some reason, but there was no difference -- the wand didn't move one iota.

As Draco flew inland from Inverness, the landscape became more rugged as he ascended into the Highlands. Now he swooped from crag to crag, valley to valley, fen to fen and muir to muir, spotting several known munros (Scots for tall mountains) in the process. It was fun, Draco had to admit, despite the grim overtones of Harry's disappearance, whereabouts unknown.

Descending from the mountains to the western coast of the mainland, Draco could see the Isle of Skye in the rainy distance, and suddenly came out of the rain cloud into a perfectly clear night as far as his eyes could see to the west. He overflew Kyle of Lochalsh and the Skye Bridge, and then headed up the Trotternish peninsula past Flora MacDonald's cottager at Flodigarry, around the standing stone which was a powerful magical talisman, past the Duntulm Lecture theater which was part of the Institute and down the west side of Trotternish. He rounded the corner at the south end of the bay sharply, swinging the broom around for a pass up the Vaternish Peninsula, where The Tower was located. Skye, of course, was an ideal place for wizardry -- few if any Muggles to see wizards at work, and in the summer it stayed light until gone ten o'clock at night. He skimmed through a valley and over a tarn shimmering in the moonlight, thinking how peaceful and serene it was.

A shadow fell over him from the west, and he looked up to see Hermes reclining on a small fluffy cloud while his sandals kept up with Draco's 'stick. Irritatingly (to Draco), Hermes was flying backwards while reclining.

"Show-off!" Draco shouted at the god as they passed over the coast, marking the last section of Draco's search area.

"You don't have to shout," Hermes said. "My hearing is remarkably acute."

"What do you want?" Draco asked in a more normal tone of voice.

"Well, actually, my sweet little lovemuffin, you. In the interim, however, I'm guessing that I'll have to settle with helping you to find your friend." Hermes looked enthusiastic nonetheless.

"How touching," Draco said.

"No, that comes later," Hermes shot in.

"Er, yes. Quite." It wasn't often that Draco was rendered without a snapp retort. This, however, was one of those times. Almost. "I thought you said that you people couldn't help us mere mortals." He accentuated the last two words with a sneer reminiscent of the old Draco from first year at Hogwarts.

"My," Hermes purred, "aren't we the feisty one."

"Yes, we fucking are," Draco said. "We are also looking for our friend, who happens to be missing Gods-know-where, except that the Gods won't fucking help us."

"Actually," Hermes said lasciviously, "that's not entirely true. Old Zeusy was a little imprecise in his instructions, y'know. Between the two of us," he whispered, "I think the old man's going senile. But, since I don't want a thunderbolt up my arse -- well, that's not precisely true, but anyway -- I'm not saying a thing."

"Mm-hm," Draco said non-commitantly. "How does this help me?" he asked.

"Funny you should ask," Hermes said. "The thing is, your mate isn't anywhere unusual." He gave Draco a meaningful look at the 'where' part of 'anywhere'.

It dawned on Draco. "You wouldn't mean that he was...anywhen, would you?" he asked suspiciously.

"Congratulations, Drakey-poos. Sherlock Holmes has company."

"But when is Harry, then?" Draco asked.

"That I can't tell you," Hermes said. "Zeusy would have my guts for garters -- not that the old man wears 'em, mind you."

"Well, the anywhen is a start, thanks, Hermes," Draco said gratefully.

"You're more than welcome, you delicious piece of love crumpet," Hermes said, givng Draco a very suggestive look. "Exactly how grateful are you?"

* * *

Kensington and Draco arrived back at the Castle just as the sky was lightening from pitch-black to dark grey with the coming of dawn. It was still raining, although Draco didn't notice that any more, especially with the Parapluvial Charm he'd rigged up for the flight back. After Hermes had disappeared, there didn't seem to be much point in searching for Harry in the present, and Draco had called this in to Siriol, who was relieved while at the same time seeming even more worried. As they walked into the kitchen, bow-legged from all the flying, Draco felt all eyes on them. "Welcome back," Siriol said, indicating that they should sit down at the table. Fewer people were there than had been present before leaving on the search -- all of the Hogwarts Professors except McGonagall had gone back to the school in order to avoid suspicion from persons unknown.

Draco gratefully accepted the large mug of tea that Tiddy, with a knowing wink, passed him, made just the way he liked it, with milk and one sugar, and leaned back into the char as Siriol related the night's events. Nobody else had had any luck at all, not even a trace of Harry, until George Weasley had flown around St Andrews to get a look at the town on his way back, at which point he found a vertical trail going upwards from the Muggle Cathedral, underneath which was one of the access routes into the network of wizard tunnels underneath St Andrews itself. Together with the information that Draco had obtained, and having followed the trail upwards for almost a mile until it levelled out, heading in the general direction that they had lost the trail the previous night. Siriol believed that, combined with the information Draco had squeezed out of Hermes, this led very strongly towards the idea that Harry was still in St Andrews, but a St Andrews of the past. They had no idea when as yet, however.

In the midst of all this, Draco remembered the note that he had found in his rucksack earlier on that night and fished it out, showing it to Siriol.

"Well, that's certainly very interesting," she said. "You think this is your handwriting as well?"

"I'm almost sure of it," Draco said. "Look, those are my Ys and As."

"Let me double-check," Siriol said, muttering Verifico at the piece of paper, which immediately flew at Draco and stuck to his left shoulder. "Finite incantatem," Siriol said, and then looked at Draco. "Dearie, when you go back to the past, would you mind leaving us some sort of note as to precisely when we have to send you? It would save an awful lot of time."

As she said it, Draco noticed that Tiddy slipped back into the room (though he hadn't noticed the elf leave) through the elf-hole in the ceiling next to the Aga. He walked quietly up to Draco and handed him a hastily-scrawled note in Draco's own handwriting, whispering, "You is saying that Tiddy should be giving this to you after he is bringing you tea tonight." His sluggish brain fumbled around with the present tense that the elves used until he realised that he, in the past, must have told Tiddy to give the note to himself. I hate temporal mechanics, he thought fiercely.

"Umm...funny you should say that, Siriol," Draco said, holding up the note and breaking the wax seal on the back, "but I appear to have sent myself a letter."

Dear me, the letter read. DO NOT READ THIS ALOUD. You will now have realised that you are going to be travelling back through time. Lucky you. There is a reason for this, and it will be explained to you when you travel back. Yes, I was pissed off at that too. Anyway, tell Siriol in private to set the thing that Hermione will find -- whatever you do, don't tell Herm that she has to find anything or she might find the wrong thing -- back ten years, ten months and ten days, from ten this morning. That is vital, as the thing (which I can't tell you about) works on base-10 orders of magnitude. I don't understand it all that well, but your enemy has one as well, and the time to which you will be sent back will be three days after your enemy arrived in that period. If you leave within thirty seconds either side of ten a.m. today, you will be able to ride a temporal ley line back and break through the temporal shield that the enemy has set for you. Bring nothing but your wand. All will be explained upon your arrival here in the past. Tell Siriol that Tempus Fugit. Trust me -- yourself -- on this. Luv 'n' kisses, --Drakey-poos

Draco realised that he himself had put that in so as to convince his present self that he was who he said he was. Siriol was frowning and again put a Verification Spell on the letter.

"It says not to read it aloud," Draco says, showing it to Siriol, who read it carefully, going "mm-hmm" and "huh" every so often. "Well, Draco, I guess that's you settled," she said. "And I know what to do myself, thanks to you -- or, more likely, someone else -- putting that handy message to me in there. As for the rest of you...go get some rest. It's been a long couple of days, and this is something that Draco has to do on his own."

"Let me get this straight," Sirius said, looking as if he were about to snarl at Siriol. "We've all just spent the last two days searching all over Scotland for Harry, and now we're supposed to go to bed? What the hell aren't you telling us, Siriol?"

Siriol's eyes flashed at him. "Sirius. Calm down. I realise that you're worried about Harry. So are the rest of us. But that note that Draco wrote and just gave to me informs me exactly what he and I have to do now."

"Oh, okay," Sirius said sarcastically. "We'll just bugger off then."

"Good. Nightie-night," Siriol said, turning back to Draco.

Sirius made a sound of disgust, but McGonagall put her hand on his arm and spoke quietly to him, which seemed to settle him down.

"Draco, come with me," Siriol said, leading him out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the stairs to the Ivory Minaret. The entrance to the Ivory Minaret, where Siriol lived, was covered in beautiful light-blue tiles, emulating the architecture of an Islamic mosque. Siriol tapped one of them with her ring finger, and a section of tiles swung in and up. Inside, through a small arched hallway, was a spiral staircase of brilliant white marble, which seemed to gleam despite the small windows only letting in a tiny bit of the early morning light. They climbed the stairs, going around the spiral twice, passing a door after the first time around, and emerged in the center of a circular room at the end of the second. Long, low, red couches hugged one half of the circular wall, and a symmetrical Isfahan rug was spread over the floor. A samovar was steaming in the corner, and the windows which entirely surrounded the room gave the most amazing view of St Andrews -- town, sea and surrounding countryside. Siriol bade him sit on one of the couches as she poured tea from the samovar.

"I realise that this is all very sudden for you, Draco," she said, handing him a cup of dark, sweet aromatic tea without milk but with a mint leaf floating in it. "Reading between the lines of that note, I am supposed to send you back in time. That's the easy bit," she explained, "but the hard part is sending you back to a precise time without making you only an observer, particularly since the note kinda intimated that the timing is precise. Sure, a couple of days back and forth in time for us is no problem with a time-turner, but they stop functioning as well as they should when you try to go back more than about a week, sometimes a month with a really good Turner. At any rate, it seems like I'm supposed to project you onto a temporal ley line. Heard of those before?

Draco hadn't. "Well," Siriol said, "they're just like normal ley lines, which are made by natural features in the environment, or sometimes by manmade things like roads or canals. At any rate, this one is in time. If I can push you onto it at a certain time, it will move you backwards to another specific time. Our enemy, it appears, had something of the same idea. It's just gone seven a.m. now, so we've got just under three hours for Hermione to find the whatever-it-is that she needs to find. I'm afraid that we won't be able to give you any backup, and that you'll have to find your own way back to the ley line once you've found Harry. It should bring you back just after the moment that you left."

"No matter how long I stay there?" Draco said.

"Well...not quite. I have a feeling that the thing that Hermione will be bringing you is a ley line activator. If you step through a ley line while the activator is turned on, the ley line will whisk you away again. Just be sure it's the right ley line...if you hit a non-temporal one you'll end up at one end of it. An unexpected holiday in Baluchistan is not my idea of fun.

"Okay," Draco said. "What else do I need to know?"

So Siriol told him.

* * *

At precisely 9.50 on the Muggle pocketwatch that Siriol had loaned him, Hermione's somewhat-frantic voice echoed from below the Ivory Minaret.

"Siriol! Draco! Are you there?!"

"Enter," Siriol boomed. The sounds of Hermione's foorsteps rang out as she raced up the stairs and into Siriol's room.

"Wow," she said, looking around at the circular room. "This is great."

Siriol smiled. "Did you bring us something?"

"How did you..." Hermione asked, then trailed off. The answer, of course, was a trifle pointless, since Hermione hadn't seen the note from the past, yet Siriol had. "Yes. I was reading through Time for Every Purpose by Byrd Seegerpete, and it mentioned a ley line activator which could be used for time travel. I remembered seeing one in the Muggle town museum, except they thought it was an old barometer or something. Anyway, I managed to create a Doppelganger Charm in the thing's place and brought it up here."

She handed it to Draco. It was a small silver star pendant hooked to a ring of purple lapis lazuli stone. The stone rotated with a clicking sound, corresponding to the little marks all the way around it. After a full rotation, the center of the star began to pulse faintly with a blue-purple light. "I think that's on," she said, as Draco started turning it around again until the light faded quickly. "And off."

"Right," Draco said, hefting the rucksack Siriol had just given him onto his back. "I'll be off then." He tied the activator pendant around his neck and clicked it until the light started to pulse. It was pulsing faster and brighter now, and faster still, until it no longer seemed to pulse but appeared to be one steady bright spot of purple. "I guess it's about here," Draco said.

Suddenly an enormous gout of flame burst from below the Ivory Minaret. They rushed to a window to see that it had come from the kitchen, which was still in the process of exploding outwards. Flame, debris, furniture and bodies were in the air, sailing at what seemed to be a snail's pace away from where the kitchen used to be.

"Oh my--" Draco said, but was cut off as a high-pitched shriek began to come from the pendant. He felt the Ivory Minaret begin to lean slightly towards his left, leaning further and further now, and he started to lean to the right so as not to fall over.

"--fucking bomb!" Siriol was yelling, pulling her wand out and trying to cast a Flotation Spell on the Minaret to avoid it crashing down into the main part of the Castle. It wasn't working. Siriol lost her balance and fell into the plate glass window, continuing straight through it and plummeting slowly to the ground.

Everything else seemed to happen in one instant.

A near-blinding light started streaming from the activator pendant.

Hermione stumbled into Draco, grabbing onto him to stop herself falling.

Draco grabbed the staircase to stop himself and Hermione falling.

Draco's hand slipped off the staircase.

Draco and Hermione started to float backwards as the Minaret toppled.

* * *

As the forensic wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad combed through the wreckage later that day, they were surprised to find only one body, a large woman who had been crushed beneath the tower. In their report, submitted the same day, one week before the entire wizarding community of Britain was annihilated by the Forces of the Dark, they surmised that the other two people supposed to be in the tower must have been those spotted by several independent witnesses flying away from the Castle on broomsticks. Since the persons investigating the bomb -- for an anonymous group calling themselves the Minions of Darkness had claimed responsibility for the bombing in an untraceable Exploding Howler to the Daily Prophet, which had itself killed four people -- died at the hands of ravening Dark halfmen, carved into chunks of flesh and bone by their scythes, the case remained forever unsolved.

* * *